


Prom Queen 2012

by flaming_muse



Category: Glee
Genre: Episode Related, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-15
Updated: 2012-05-15
Packaged: 2017-11-05 10:47:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/405559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flaming_muse/pseuds/flaming_muse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s only actually a matter of seconds before Principal Figgins finishes his announcement, but they last forever.</p>
<p>set during 3x19 ("Prom-asaurus")</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prom Queen 2012

There’s a moment when Kurt is sure it’s going to happen again, he’s going to be voted Prom Queen for the second year in a row, and he thinks with horror and a fair bit of resignation that he was so, so stupid to have given his classmates the opportunity.

It’s only actually a matter of seconds before Principal Figgins finishes his announcement, but they last forever. 

Kurt lives a whole lifetime of anger and embarrassment in that breathless moment. He’s hurt, he’s humiliated, but he’s barely even shocked. How can he be shocked when this has happened before? He knew it was an option.

It was mortifying enough to have to walk with everyone’s eyes on him back up onto that stage as a reminder of the year before at all, but for him to be named Prom Queen _again_...

_No. Oh, no._

Kurt’s skin crawls with the thought of it; the hair on his bare forearms stands on end. He won’t let himself look at Finn or Blaine to see their sympathy that feels an awful lot like pity. He absolutely cannot make himself look out at the audience to see their derision for the second year in a row; he still wakes up sick from it in his dreams some nights. Kurt wants for the first time in a long time to disappear, but instead he steels himself for the verbal slap in the face. This time he’s not going to give them the pleasure of seeing him run out.

He was stupid to have been caught up in the romance and budding nostalgia of the night and come. There was a reason he’d thrown the anti-prom party with Rachel and Blaine in the first place, because he didn’t want to give the bigots at school the opportunity to mock him again, and yet here he is, standing up on stage in front of them, just letting them do it. He should have known better. He _had_ known better.

He’d chosen not to attend, he’d put together his creative black tie outfit specifically because there was no way any bit of it could be construed as feminine (and also because it was fabulous and because it was insanity to miss out on any opportunity to wear a top hat), and he hadn’t tried to talk Blaine out of his crazy hair gel-fueled worries.

He’d known better, he’d made other plans, and yet here he is anyway.

Not that he shouldn’t have been able to go to prom with Blaine, not that he didn’t _want_ to, but he still is putting himself out as a target just by being here, and he only has himself to blame if the rest of the school aims for it.

Kurt tells himself he can hold his head high through this again, and it will be easier this time because he’s had practice. He’s always better with a rehearsal first.

He can barely take a breath between when Principal Figgins announces that Prom Queen is a write-in candidate again and when he says it’s Rachel, which makes even less sense than if it were Kurt, but he’s not going to complain.

It’s Rachel. Rachel is Prom Queen.

He manages to smile for her and feels some of the tension drain from his body as he brings her her crown and offers a few encouraging words to soothe her own obvious nerves. It isn’t him, after all, and Rachel should have no worry that her own Prom King won’t want to dance with her. She won’t have to face that horrible rejection the way he’d had to watch Karofsky walk away from him and leave him there spotlit and alone with everyone staring and no obvious way out; her white knight won’t have to appear out of the crowd like a dream to save the moment but instead will lead her with love onto the floor. That’s as it should be.

It’s all as it should be: a perfect, romantic dance for his step brother and his dear friend.

Kurt smiles a little more. It’s all okay. That lifetime of unfounded worry was over in a few seconds. It’s okay.

Still, as the evening goes on and he dances with Blaine with his soft, wild hair and his soft, grateful eyes Kurt has the niggling feeling that he’s dodged a bullet. He feels even more certain that he needs to leave Lima and never call it home again. He needs to be somewhere where he can wear what he wants - from a kilt to a top hat to a tuxedo as traditional as Blaine’s - without having to worry about anyone else’s perception of it. He needs to be somewhere where he can dance with Blaine and not have to think for a second about what what the boundaries are or what anyone else might say or do about it. He needs to be somewhere where he doesn’t ever have to feel humiliated, trapped, or eager to disappear.

Blaine smiles at him as Kurt spins him a little faster with the tempo of the music, and Kurt automatically smiles back. Of course he smiles back. A part of his heart may still lodged be in his throat, but it’s prom. He’s not going to give Blaine any less than he can - which is far less than Blaine deserves, but they’re used to it - just because of the shadows of homophobia that swirl around the other couples on the floor. If he and Blaine aren’t dancing cheek-to-cheek, if they’re not kissing or acting sappily in love like some of their friends, they’re still dancing. They’re still standing tall. There’s a comfort in that and in the fact that they’re doing it together.

Besides, Blaine really is devastatingly handsome in his tux, despite the untamed riot of his hair. (Kurt appreciates the vulnerability of it to the depths of his heart, but he isn’t blind to the power of a judicious use of the right product.) It all makes Kurt want to pull Blaine a bit closer, smile a bit more softly, maybe drop a gentle kiss on his cheek or the edge of his mouth - not a lot more than what he’s already doing, but too much for where they are. He can’t, so he doesn’t, but he still wants to and tells himself they’ll make up for it later.

This year’s prom is a lot better than last year’s, but it’s still not how Kurt wants to live his life. He doesn’t want to have to be careful. He doesn’t want to have to hold back the way he and Blaine always do. He doesn’t want to have to worry because he knows what _could_ happen even if it doesn’t on any given night.

He just wants to be somewhere where he’s able to live his life without those kinds of concerns. He wants to be somewhere where this kind of humiliation isn’t an option.

He wants to be in New York.

As much as Kurt is feeling nostalgic already about this magical senior year he’s had with Blaine and his friends, for a part of him leaving cannot come soon enough.


End file.
